Review-in-Progress (Open Thread)

[EternalSpark]

What GC2 needs is a clear, precise, and understandable economy system.

Clear - This one is obvious. Most people are not understanding the economy system.

Precise - Frogboy admitted that most of the things we're having trouble with were tested by "feel". Mistake! My research bonus is said to be 50%, but I'm really only getting 25%. Civ games have done so well because a player can see the results of his actions - if I build a mine, I will get 3 more hammers. In GC2, this isn't possible.

Understandable - No, paying for social when you're not using it isn't understandable. It makes no sense.

[yin26]

Sure, 1% is hyperbole. But even if it's 10-20%, it's still too small to be the driving force of hunting down silly abuses. I think the idea of Metaverse to show off simply beating the game at certain levels a certain number of times is one thing. Tying that to score is another mess entirely. Frankly, I'd kill score completely and just show who has beaten the game how many times and at what settings. Perhaps you could also show how long or how many turns this took...NOT as part of a ranking score but just as information for the public to consider when looking at your wins. For example, if I see somebody finishing games in 15 turns, I could assume something gimicky is going on there.

Kill score. Keep raw data. Let the fans figure out the rest.

[Gufnork]

1% is an overly exaggerated figure. Based on the metaverse numbers only 30-40 people could care only about the scores (if there are more, they're incompetent). There will be more in time, I'm sure, but it will still be very, very small part of the community. I haven't seen anything that hints at balancing based on the metaverse, but then again I don't understand the scoring system at all, since I haven't tried deciphering it. I treat it as a way of showing off my victories, having beaten the game on the highest difficulty is more impressive than a high score. The bug that displays my crippling and my masochistic victories as normal is rather annoying though.

But after just winning my Masochistic game with relative ease (once I realized that I could ignore one front where I was fighting three civs without receiving noticable losses), the main weakness of this game is it's lacking AI. Another game has failed to challenge the player without the use of obscene bonuses.

[yin26]

I had a different vision in mind when thinking about the Metaverse (one, simply, where he could begin to ferret out some of the top players and learn from their patterns). Certainly if he feels compelled to close the ludicrus loop holes of patented abuse just so some Internet score/rank seems "fair," then I see that as a huge waste of time.

In the same way I see some Civ 4 decisions taking that same path. What does it matter to the vast majority of SP players if 1% of the audience is out there (excuse me for saying this, but it's how I feel) with NO LIFE working on ways to abuse the system to get 100 more points? You worked on the game from all directions, and that's to be admired. Feedback from folks like you should drive REASONABLE attempts to close problems.

But, I say, let's not have the 1% drive GalCiv's development from here. Use Metaverse to capture some good AI routines for SP and, to the extent that it doesn't become the driving force, make Metaverse scoring seem decently fair. Frankly, anybody getting in a pissing contest on Metaverse should walk outside and smoke something. It would be healthier.

[Sirian]

Originally posted by yin26

I bet, though, Brad will find ways to optimize the game for players like you and Sirian...which will be great for players like me...

Brad tried that approach in GC1. ABC was perceived as too strong, so got the nerf bat. Then DEF was suddenly too strong, so that got whacked. Then GHI was too strong. Talk about whack-a-mole! Lots of updates can work against you, providing a constantly moving target that players have to learn and relearn -- and for what? Slay one giant, another rises to take its place.

You can't reach balance by plugging holes. Balance is achieved through cohesive vision, not piecemeal via giant slaying.

For all that Brad claims that he has left out multiplayer, I find the reality to be something else. The Metaverse IS multiplayer, and he warped GalCiv1 over and over again trying to keep the Metaverse afloat.

Multiplayer is by definition any gaming activity involving multiple players. That isn't the classic industry definition, which is feature-based and is steeped in the programmer's mentality. I'm forwarding a broader definition that accounts for the new reality. Sizable communities revolving around playing single player games as a group activity are a recent phenomenon and the industry can be slow to integrate new concepts.

The Metaverse is a ladder. It's a competitive ladder without head-to-head gaming, but still competitive. Competition, by definition, is multiplayer. One player "competing" against nobody at all is single player.

So now what we are facing is a game that revolves around the Metaverse, revolves around multiplayer far more than Civ4 ever has or will. Who is there to give Brad the feedback? It's the most passionate, dedicated players. In the din of the open forums, the sweeping tides of the elite will drive the update process.

To maintain a Metaverse, you need an extremely well balanced game. You need a game that can stand up to the most extreme multiplayer rigors. Civ4 could not stack up to that challenge and did not try. The Metaverse is in fact an MMO, if you think it through. It's not much different than Guild Wars, where players play in small isolated groups then intermingle in community spaces. Brad's adaptations to try to keep the MMO on course are not significantly different from the constant updates that more interactive MMOs provide. Like other MMOs, only those willing to dedicate extraordinary amounts of time to the level grind will be able to compete for the top spots, for the fame and the glory.

Complex scoring systems will always be full of holes. I personally believe Civ4's scoring system is useless for single player and wish it wasn't there. It would not do any better than GC2's scoring and might do worse, in a Metaverse environment. Yet Score, the raw numbers, is what drives the Metaverse, and the most elite players drive the score. Constantly moving the goalposts each time the top players decipher the latest patch is a futile chase that will do more harm than good to the true single player game. Some things can be fixed (like the bug that I found with the planetary projects) but some things they are just going to have to live with. Futzing around with the tech trading (for instance) at this point is likely to unravel way more than it can fix. You can't apply a bandaid to a bullet wound.

Metaverse is a workable recipe as a design priority but is not compatible with a design priority of vastly different gameplay paths. These clash, and one or the other (or both) will give out.

There are, for instance, many of the startup options that are on the weaker side. None of the Metaverse competitors will be playing those. The ladder players who are chasing score will seek out the few options that score the most the fastest and replay those over and over again. That's what happened in GC1. I hit the scene right after Brad revamped the whole scoring system to give a LOT more points for playing the highest difficulty. (Leading metaverse players were winning Beginner games in fifteen minutes on a pat formula and racking up dozens of these games per day to pad their score, so Brad had to take that away and instead reward those who could beat the hardest scenarios.) I rose to the front page of the leaderboard, but I was posting games all over the spectrum: good, evil, all galaxy sizes, all habitability ratings, all victory types, exploring the whole game and reporting whatever happened. Most of the other top scorers were perfecting one gameplay formula and turning in the same high scoring results over and over and over: military conquest on the largest map size.

I hope Brad leans the other way, away from trying to perfect the Metaverse. He's caught in the trap he thinks he has avoided: the trap of multiplayer as top design priority. It drove his patch process in GC1 and he's set up to travel that road again.


- Sirian

[yin26]

To quickly change your ship build, click the "planet info" button, first one to the left on the bottom. This brings up a listing of all your planets with a ton of info including current social and ship builds. Simply double-click the line showing the ship build and it will give you a quick build list with which you can quickly change to a different ship.

By the way, I meant to thank bonscott for this tip.

The constant "*** for tat" with the AI on ship technology is awesome (which they do even on normal)...It's an awesome stratigic part of the game that doesn't get enough press and Civ 4 just can't compete here.

Indeed. As Sirian notes, of course, there are some ways to abuse the AI, but in my casual approach so far, it's been fun.

[yin26]

Masochistic. I started on Painful then Crippling, now Masochistic.

O.K. You're way ahead of me then, Gufnork.

I think I've come up with something. This is a very good game for the casual player.

To some degree, of course, that will be true of any game, but in a game where extreme micro can uncover so many ways to cripple the AI, this seems especially true. I bet, though, Brad will find ways to optimize the game for players like you and Sirian...which will be great for players like me when/if we get really serious. This is, I'll concede, one of those areas where having massive MP data coming back at you can feed back readily into the SP AI experience. I hope and think, though, that Brad will be watching the Metaverse and other player feedback closely sans MP.

[yin26]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Review-in-Progress (Open Thread)

Tech means tech in GalCiv, too.

I agree, of course, but I merely am talking about degrees. You *can* get to the point where you add an extra weapon, but that's usually at least a weight of 7 or so (from what I've seen so far), so there isn't just that one big jump in tech that gets you there --well, getting bigger hulls is pretty dramatic-- but a series of smaller techs. I think Civ4 _needs_ to have the breaks on tech trading, getting tech from taking cities, etc., for a reason. There the jumps are simply too big to give tech away. That said, I agree with you from what I've seen that tech whoring is a bit too easy in GalCiv2, and I hope Brad hears from you and others.

You're not utilizing the software to its fullest potential yet...I spend the whole game tilting back and forth.

I admire your penchant for detail and focus, but I just make the decision not to squeeze every ounce out of every turn. This speaks more to the fact that I have a hectic home life at this phase (two little kids, a homestay student, etc.), and I play the game for that fuzzy fun factor, drawing only to perhaps a surface degree on what my gaming experience might allow me to do if I really put my mind to it. That said, I think gamers such as yourself are *critical* for Brad to understand how the system needs tweaking, and if I ever work my way up the difficulty levels via great micro, I'll be glad you helped tweak the formulas.

Nothing is quite as powerful as the 100% tech beeline to make a significant leap, followed by the 100% military production lean to churn out a generation of the new ships and send them straight in to battle. The AIs don't see it coming, and if you have intel on them, you can SEE what they have at their planets and what their exact strength is, etc.

Actually, I've already seen that. The player should suffer more by beelining at the expense of a wider tech net being cast...and this gets back to your point about the ease of tech trading.

In GalCiv, if you are behind in tech you are in serious trouble.

Lacking enough experience, I'll grant you this point. Civ does favor the defender in a number of ways, so there is likely work that can be done here.

There's a lot to gain from microing them in the opening. I mean down to the penny.

I grant this but don't have the desire to do it, I guess. Maybe when life eases up for me???

There's too much value in planting your flag. You are FORCED to respect any planted flag until you get to Planetary Invasion tech.

Good point. There is a consistent theme, I'd say, in people wanting a more interesting early game, and this fits in there.

The difference between a ship every two turns out of your best planet vs every three turns and a lot of waste may cost you a quarter of your fleet!

Indeed. When I find myself losing on higher levels, I'll understand why!

Actually, having the Minors reach resources is a huge crutch for the player. Player can declare on minors with minimal consequences, on timing of his choosing.

Yeah, I recall abusing them in GalCiv1, too. We should be able to turn them off (or make them less open to abuse).

FPS is my perfect MP speed, since you can pause and rest after any death, or stop and listen and watch and wait for a moment. In RTS and in TBS MP, you have to stay on top of it all the time.

Agreed. I had to leave my AOK clan when my then 2-year old was caught behind me trying to pour grape juice in the VCR.

I wish I could tell you what positive impacts Civ4 MP had on the quality of the SP, but... I can't do that, as you know.

I've seen some, can imagine many. But it's a trade off no SP person (the majority, as Brad rightly notes) takes lightly.

The one thing Civ has had going for it, though, is a new designer with each iteration. Then you get blind spots in different areas.

You also run the risk of whack-a-mole: Fixed this issue finally but took a step backward on one that was was working just fine previously. That said, I think Soren was outstanding in closing a lot of blind spots while accentuating strengths (sometimes with new content).

Oh, and one more thing. The AIs surrendering vacates their starbases.

Hmmm, if they surrender, those bases should go to the new owner, too! That definitely needs to be fixed post-haste.

[Gufnork]

Out of curiosity, what level are you playing on? I'm still testing the AI but definitely *have* seen it alter its builds to counter my attacks. That's pretty good.

Masochistic. I started on Painful then Crippling, now Masochistic.

Not true. The GC2 AI knows where the habitable worlds are.

I've heard people say this, but I haven't bothered to check for myself. I still win any space race on larger maps. But I know they're not supposed to. If they do, it's a bug.

After reading this and other reviews, I think I've come up with something. This is a very good game for the casual player. Those of us who generally start every new TBS game on the highest difficulty and always find the best way to play the game rather quickly finds this game rather dull. It's all about micromanagement. The AI may be a good challenge for the average player, but on higher difficulties it's very lacking. I've never seen anyone who wins regularily on Crippling or above say that this is a good game. I've never seen anyone playing on Tough or below say it's a bad one.

[Sirian]

Re: Re: Re: Review-in-Progress (Open Thread)

Originally posted by yin26
a lot of the rading surrounds things like missles that now weight one unit less...in Civ, techs means TECHS.

Tech means tech in GalCiv, too.

Those engines that weigh a unit less? They let you fit an extra weapon or engine or defense on to the ship. In the early going, that may mean going from one weapon to two (doubling your offensive power) or from one engine boost to two (pushing speed from 3 to 5, for instance, which after the +1 boost from Impule engines is a net 1/3rd gain in speed.)

That +5 boost to Influence? Taking your bonus from +20 to +25? That's only a 20% net gain in boost, but sometimes that is the amount that starts pushing back the AI's border. You push past their planet and gain control over the local space around their planet and next thing you know, you've DOMINATED the influence there and the AI planet is now deep inside your vastly expanded border.

+10 to Speed is kind of bogus, as it is really +1 speed. Going from Ion to Impulse engines adds +1 speed to every ship you own, which turns a 1 speed ship in to a 2 speed ship!

You're not utilizing the software to its fullest potential yet. Those small bits of advantage can be commanding if used well. Push on them a bit harder, such as dedicating a beeline up a certain branch for several levels of advantage there, and you can mop the floors with them. If their whole fleet is packing one type of weapon, you can spend a couple of turns upgrading your defense vs that type and sure, they can start building other ships types, but meanwhile, their entire existing force is obsolete vs your ships. The human player can do things like park his most experienced couple of fleets and some transports near his target's borders, pull a mass upgrade to state of the art tech, wait the turn or two for the upgrades to complete, then slam the enemy. Each victory only makes the attacking ships more experienced (giving them more hit points), and that can snowball. Even if you lose one or two, if you down multiple FLEETS of the enemy in the process and rip in to his gut and start taking worlds, you can press that advantage before the AI has time to counter, since the AI won't (as far as I can tell) run 100% military production when its life is on the line. The human can and will. I spend the whole game tilting back and forth.

Nothing is quite as powerful as the 100% tech beeline to make a significant leap, followed by the 100% military production lean to churn out a generation of the new ships and send them straight in to battle. The AIs don't see it coming, and if you have intel on them, you can SEE what they have at their planets and what their exact strength is, etc.

GalCiv has a lot of subtleties, but the tech is not nearly as incremental as you describe. You're underwhelmed by the surface math but not paying attention to the ratio math, the quantum leaps. They are actually more significant than Civ because Civ has fudge features like City Defense Bonus, terrain and fortify bonuses, that will cover for someone behind in tech, up to a point. In GalCiv, if you are behind in tech you are in serious trouble.

I kind of fire and forget on those sliders.

There's a lot to gain from microing them in the opening. I mean down to the penny. It's not as much about savings as about time. You've got X production available and you need to shave off turns by minimizing waste. Minimized waste means a fraction of production put toward research. Every turn you save in the Roach Race can make or break a planet grab. I've certainly won over half a dozen planet grabs by half a turn now, and lost a few by the same margin.

There's too much value in planting your flag. You are FORCED to respect any planted flag until you get to Planetary Invasion tech. You can go there fairly straightaway but the AI does not do that, so you can spam the colony ships and run ZERO military for a long long time. Try that in Civ4!

I don't mess with the sliders all the time later on, but there are still times when you have to micro. If you aren't going to research a followup tech for a long time, you want to micro the tech slider to minimize overflow. If you have a powerhouse production planet, you want to micro the military production so that X turns per ship are done with minimal waste. (The wrong number, say going short of the target by a couple of units per turn, not only cuts your actual production rate from that planet to 1/(X + 1) down from 1/X, but also simply wastes the overflow, so you are spending almost as much but getting a lot less for it!) The difference between a ship every two turns out of your best planet vs every three turns and a lot of waste may cost you a quarter of your fleet!

That would suck.

Actually, having the Minors reach resources is a huge crutch for the player. Player can declare on minors with minimal consequences, on timing of his choosing. The Majors are slow to attack the Minors so you can always (in GC2, that I've seen) take away starbases or the home planet from any minor, whenever you are ready. Of course if you wait for them to build Capital buildings first, you get free extra Economic and Manufacturing capitals. The Minors are the biggest lever in the game. Use them to trade techs early and for cash and planets later, plus as "holding companies" on resources until you are ready to build a Constructor for each resource they are holding and go grab them. You need to scout really well first, though, or you may free up a guarded resource in the fog somewhere to hand to a Major -- which is a Major Oops.

Those poor Minors have big "Kick Me" signs on their back. They exist as food to nourish the human player's civ -- or the AIs, if you are too slow about your dinner plans. You can be incredibly evil to the Minors and still be a Good alignment. One of those things about the game. (I shouldn't describe how evil you can really be. These guys are living and breathing doormats!)

Hmmm. I haven't tried that win yet. Guess I'll avoid it and hope the AI gets programmed to handle it.

In GC1 they were oblivious. Now they can use this game system offensively, and to a limited degree on defense, but cannot handle the full court press. ... That's probably a good thing, though. When the game is well and truly over, let it end quickly.

On the larger "MP first" front, though, I'll decline to say more at this point.

Some games put MP first. Quake is one of those, and well it should. That's not the same as "MP integrated from the start." Imagine being an SP player and hearing that SP was tacked on to the MP engine after the fact. Would that encourage you to get excited about that kind of SP?

I'm not a Civ MP player because my clock runs faster. I need more intensive periods of action interspersed with periods of rest or ease. FPS is my perfect MP speed, since you can pause and rest after any death, or stop and listen and watch and wait for a moment. In RTS and in TBS MP, you have to stay on top of it all the time.

The lone exception I remember was Deadlock, with its three minute turns and very limited playfields. I owned the ladder for that game when it came out in 1996: first TBS with organized online play. Games couple play out in two hours, three hours tops. I had no trouble working within that turn timer and could even rest for a few moments at the end of less busy turns. RTS and Civ MP have too many things going on. You have to formulize your play and it takes a lot of practice and repetition. Repetition is generally not what I want from gaming. It feels too much like work for me. Deadlock was formulaic and repetitive, too, and it was a smaller game. Been there, done that.

Civ4 MP actually offers lots of variety: maps, traits, but then the less formulaic, the more time you need to think through the new situations. This clashes with the MP culture, which pushes things to higher speed play -- and necessarily so, because you can't take six hours for a game. I wish I could tell you what positive impacts Civ4 MP had on the quality of the SP, but... I can't do that, as you know.

I think Brad took some good stuff from Civ...

Brad is a true player. He seems to have borrowed the MOO2 uber- race gimmick without also wrecking his entire title in the process, and that is a feat of indescribable proportion. Neither MOO2 nor MOO3 came close. They both went down the tubes, victims of their infatuation with their own "cool ideas".

The one thing Civ has had going for it, though, is a new designer with each iteration. Then you get blind spots in different areas. The same guy working on the same sequence of titles tends to produce blind spots in the same areas over and over again. ... QV: John Carmack's games.


Oh, and one more thing. The AIs surrendering vacates their starbases. In my current game, Torians had a JUICED UP pimpmobile of a base on the Military Resource. If they could be allowed to keep that even after their planets are gone, that would be a royal pain. They DON'T keep bases after they lose all planets, but maybe they should. Anyway, they surrendered to the Arceans, two planets (I took the other seven already) and their super-charged starbase went poofies, and now I have control over a Military Resource. ... This spells nothing but Pain for the rest of my targets. Sometimes AIs who surrender make things easier on you, even when they surrender to someone else!


- Sirian

[yin26]

Re: Re: Review-in-Progress (Open Thread)

Sirian!

As always, you have elevated the level of discussion. I'm thrilled you stopped in as I think I've learned some things. Of course, there are a few comments, but this was a great exchange

Not true. The GC2 AI knows where the habitable worlds are.

Indeed, somehow I didn't know this. You are right that this is a huge advantage for the AI. Of course, the minimap starts by showing you ghosts of all the systems, so you aren't entirely in the dark, so to speak. Nevertheless, I agree with you.

They don't form military blocs in Civ4, either, but at least Civ4 limits the tech trading.

That is a good point, though I see surrendering as a kind of lame duck forming an alliance. I also think the tech trading is a bit easy and fast, then again a lot of the trading surrounds things like missles that now weight one unit less...in Civ, techs means TECHS. In GalCiv2, techs mean (baby) techs more often than not.

No, but there is the spending slider and the emphasize buttons, which are intensive with micromanagement.

Perhaps you are just a better player (well, I know you are), but I kind of fire and forget on those sliders. Sure, when I'm in a war or going back to peace I revisit these things. You play more like the computer does, I bet...and the computer never gets tired of adjusting sliders.

You will appreciate the full depth of the AIs' advantage when you see a Minor Civ beeline its constructors straight for a resource half a galaxy away, when it launched those AHEAD of its Scouts.

That would suck.

GalCiv requires you to micro your scouting all the way through! (In fairness, I haven't tried the Autoscout feature. MAYBE that can save some effort, though probably at the cost of adding more scouting ships and still needing to micro some of them).

Once you colonize the nearby planets (again, you can see the ghosts, so it's not a big guessing game), I just put 3 or 4 scouts on auto and call it a day. On larger maps, I'd add more scouts, like you say. I tend to do that in Civ, too. Maybe not as effective, but I don't like to be bothered too much with that kind of micro. I will say, though, that units often overlap their auto scouting, and that's pretty poor.

With the AIs knowing the same techs, they are locked in to certain weapon/defense combinations for large chunks of the game. You can see what they are going to build based on what they have.

Excellent point, one mitigated to some degree by the fact that techs take baby steps (even when you are "far" down a tree it's still often not FAR down overall). However, I agree this part of the game should be watched carefully.

Civ3 suffered the same problem, though the 1.5x monopoly sale cost kludge stopped some of the bleeding there.

I hope Brad visits this thread.

Civ4's tech trading screen is the one key thing I miss, though. Having to speak to every AI (on practically every turn) once just to see what the current "state of the art" is for each AI and get a sense of which trades to make to maximize my advantage, well... It's quite tedious, as is the "broker" interface of having to check all kinds of numbers until finding the green/red edge. That stuff could be, should be fully automated. When you have lined up your techs and their techs and want to "make up the difference" in cash, there should be a single button to press that goes directly to the min/max amount, and saves the player the tedium of babysitting it.

Agreed, except I'll say in Civ 4 you have to exit coversations with each individual leader. In GalCiv, you just click the arrow and cycle through them all in a heartbeat. Like you say, though, bartering for cash is annoying and could be done in one click.

GalCiv1 had the longest end game of any entry ever in the genre -- and I still enjoyed it for fifty games. GalCiv2 seems to do a lot better in wars not being as certain, in loss of relations with AIs not being as steep and predestined, and in obtaining good relations not being as easy. That's a good start to fixing things.

Glad to hear! Can't wait to see end games.

Civ4 actually lets you off the hook a lot sooner. You can build the UN and declare yourself victor with 60% of the world's population, or build the spaceship. Plus GalCiv's expansion phase is over VERY early, as planets are grab as grab can right up front, and then all expansion is over except via conquest or culture from there on.

I don't mind a long end game as long as the result is up in the air. You are right, though, about the expansion phase in GalCiv2 being brutal and quick. I don't mind that much, though. The expansion phase in all these games sometimes reminds me more of the lottery than anything else, and I'm happy to get things locked in and work on larger strategy.

Flipping planets by culture is actually doable, though, since the AIs all collectively neglect both the Influence techs and building up their Influence starbases with multiple cultural Modules.

Hmmm. I haven't tried that win yet. Guess I'll avoid it and hope the AI gets programmed to handle it.

Our differences on this point may revolve around playing under different conditions.

I don't mean to say my units in Civ4 are useless, but perhaps in large part because of the graphics, you see your muskets up against rifles and you think "Man, this sucks." In reality, you're still O.K. if you buy time and use the units properly...but the psychological impact is greater in Civ 4.

They're both good games. In the end, I prefer Civ4 primarily because it offers an extended expansion phase (can't grow too fast, don't have to spam the colony ships), involves a lot less micromanagement, and has fewer situations with only one right choice. GalCiv2 hits a lot of gameplay niches that Civ4 doesn't, though, so strategy game fans should get both. Some will prefer one or the other, but most will enjoy both.

Yeah, we just differ on some things. Like I said, a short expansion phase is fine with me, and as long as I don't over worry my sliders or feel the need to micro my scouts, etc., I feel a LOT less micro in GalCiv2 just by getting rid of those blasted workers. Add in governors and rally points, and I think Civ 4 really drags by comparison. Of course, you CAN micro like crazy in GalCiv2, but you don't have to, either. To me, that's a strength. Then again, you're playing on much higher levels, so some of my lazy approach might bite me later.

The only difference between SP and MP in the game rules is the AI, and Civ4's AI was not shortchanged.

I need to lay low a little on this as well, but to the degree that MP general limits features that can be exploited by players, it also guides SP into making an AI that can handle the available options. On this we agree. On the larger "MP first" front, though, I'll decline to say more at this point.

It's a question of design priority, with right answers in both directions.

Absolutely. Good ideas in both games. I think Brad took some good stuff from Civ, and I hope Civ returns the favor.

Always a pleasure, Sirian.

--Yin

[Sirian]

Re: Review-in-Progress (Open Thread)

Yin!

Originally posted by yin26
While I could try to avoid doing this, I'll likely be making Civ 4 comparisons all over the place.

That's only natural. They are the only two major entries in the genre at the moment.

I agree with your general assessment and most of your points. I disagree with some points, of course, and since you covered the rest, those are where I should elaborate.

* Although I haven't played long enough to see the repercussions, GalCiv's AI "doesn't cheat" though at higher levels it will get economic bonuses.

Not true. The GC2 AI knows where the habitable worlds are. The manual offers a line about "Stellar Cartography" but I have found as the human player that this only shows the LOCATION of planets on the minimap, not their quality. GC1 would show off the "yellow" stars, and habiable worlds can only appear at yellow stars, but in GC2 I can't see any difference for the stars on the minimap. The AI knows planet quality and beelines its colony ships straight at the best/nearest planets. Even if this ability is disabled for the Terran AI until it learns Stellar Cartography, that tech can be researched in the first couple of turns -- and the AI SHOULD be doing that if it starts blind. The rest of them cheat like mofos, as far as I can tell.

In a cramped environment, this is a crushing advantage on smaller maps. To compete fairly, the human player has to scout the map, learn spoiler info, then reload the game opening and beeline his own ships to the right locations. ... Or he has to play a non-cramped environment in which there is time enough to build some scouts to help determine where to go and how many colony ships to build or to send in certain directions.

The Civ4 AI actually has to scout and makes its decisions on info that is only available to players.

The GC2 AI -was- cutting the player a break in not using the fastest possible colony ship designs, but the 1.0X patch info says that this has changed, so now even on maps with more breathing room, the player will have to cheat (pre-scout the map) to compete on even terms in the Roach Race. ... This may not bother others, but it bothers me a lot. Stamping out asynchronous gameplay paths like this is a design priority of mine.

I'm all for comparisons. Competition raises the bar for everybody, and gamers will win. Those comparisons need to be accurate, though.

Now if Stellar Cartography would also simply REVEAL ALL STARS ON THE MAIN MAP, including their color and the ability to click on them and see how many habitable planets are there (though not their quality), that would go a long way to fixing things. (GC1 Stellar Cartography was reasonably useful.)

* In general, the AI just seems a lot more clever than you sometimes get in Civ4. For example, if you attack a civ that happens to be a strong trading partner of your friend, that friend might get involved to protect his economic interests.

I haven't seen any sign of this. My games have been played on Challenging, Crippling and now the highest level in the game, and the AIs are not forming any military blocs. They don't form military blocs in Civ4, either, but at least Civ4 limits the tech trading. On that highest level game, I have had the tech lead all game long, despite having about a third of the economic (spending) power of the average AI (and a fifth of the economic leader). GC2 AIs do have a few restrictions -- they won't sell weapons tech to the military leader, and they cap the price in cash they'll pay for anything -- but it hardly matters. I've gotten three fourths of the tech tree for free and pulled in tens of thousands in cash, which I burn at an exorbitant rate to keep up in actual production. (Spending and income are NOT MARRIED in GalCiv -- a mathematical strangeness that allows one to lean toward extra spending capacity at the expense of boosting income, and using tech trading income from raking the entire galaxy over the trading coals to play far more powerfully than the AIs.) The GalCiv AIs burn their initial cash on rushed Colony Ships and other goodies, and that's actually not very wise, except on really cramped maps where the Roach Race will end within the first dozen turns. A long, slow burn at 1-to-1 is generally stronger than a lightning burn up front at heavy penalty.

* There are no workers in GalCiv2!

No, but there is the spending slider and the emphasize buttons, which are intensive with micromanagement.

There is also an intensive need for scouting, and more so on the larger maps. ... You will appreciate the full depth of the AIs' advantage when you see a Minor Civ beeline its constructors straight for a resource half a galaxy away, when it launched those AHEAD of its Scouts.

Civ has a big need for scouting too, but softens it quite a bit with map trading enabled in the midgame. GalCiv requires you to micro your scouting all the way through! (In fairness, I haven't tried the Autoscout feature. MAYBE that can save some effort, though probably at the cost of adding more scouting ships and still needing to micro some of them).

* Another aspect of the ship design thing is that the AI is superb at maximizing the rock-paper-scissors dynamic.

My jury is still out on this point. One thing you will notice is that the AIs stay bunched in a pack. They all know the same techs, either from all researching the same things, or from lots of AI-AI tech trading, or both. You as player can gain unique advantage by researching up lines the AIs ignore and hoarding your monopoly techs. You usually don't have to break ANY of your own monopolies. Just keep shuffling techs between the AIs and pick up their new discoveries at no net cost to yourself. If they break one of your monopolies, you can then jump on that and sell it around to the others for techs you may need, or cash, or set them up to prevent cross-trading and leave some of the majors in the hole.

With the AIs knowing the same techs, they are locked in to certain weapon/defense combinations for large chunks of the game. You can see what they are going to build based on what they have. Yet player can spend a few turns on 100% research and shoot up any single branch to a medium term monopoly advantage on techs none of the AIs know, build a round of ships and field them before the AI can do anything about it. Since every AI on the board has the same batch of techs, ONE design approach for the Human beats them all. ... It is, in its implementation, far short of the potential that the elegance of the design invites you to imagine.

This is why I am so rabidly anti-tech-trade. Clever players will figure it out, spread the word, and then the elite within the community end up pushing the game balance around, as the designer tries to nerf this and fix that, to little avail as the core diplomatic design is an open book.

The underlying design is solid, though. It's the AI that is falling down. An AI that is too willing to trade -- with one another as well as the player -- comes out in that "tech pack" effect. ... Civ3 suffered the same problem, though the 1.5x monopoly sale cost kludge stopped some of the bleeding there.

* As for the interface (something I was rather harsh on Civ4 about), I'd say GalCiv does a marginally better job at making a wealth of information easy to access.

This point deserves special attention. The information on hand is extensive, but you do have to pay Espionage costs to get your hands on it. BIG espionage costs. The info is clear and well packaged. I use it constantly to calibrate my short term objectives.

Civ4's tech trading screen is the one key thing I miss, though. Having to speak to every AI (on practically every turn) once just to see what the current "state of the art" is for each AI and get a sense of which trades to make to maximize my advantage, well... It's quite tedious, as is the "broker" interface of having to check all kinds of numbers until finding the green/red edge. That stuff could be, should be fully automated. When you have lined up your techs and their techs and want to "make up the difference" in cash, there should be a single button to press that goes directly to the min/max amount, and saves the player the tedium of babysitting it.

* I can't yet speak to what I think is the most important comparison between Civ4 and GalCiv2 -- an interesting end game.

GalCiv1 had the longest end game of any entry ever in the genre -- and I still enjoyed it for fifty games. GalCiv2 seems to do a lot better in wars not being as certain, in loss of relations with AIs not being as steep and predestined, and in obtaining good relations not being as easy. That's a good start to fixing things. Certainly you CAN avoid the mop-up of having to conquer every last planet by either making some allies along the way or spamming the board with culture. However, building up lots of cultural starbases is very repetitive. And you still have to wipe out any AIs you can't persuade to your alliance, to win by diplomacy.

Civ4 actually lets you off the hook a lot sooner. You can build the UN and declare yourself victor with 60% of the world's population, or build the spaceship. Plus GalCiv's expansion phase is over VERY early, as planets are grab as grab can right up front, and then all expansion is over except via conquest or culture from there on.

Flipping planets by culture is actually doable, though, since the AIs all collectively neglect both the Influence techs and building up their Influence starbases with multiple cultural Modules. This is in part due to a weak AI, and you can magnify the effect by choosing Influence picks at launch or the Pacifist political party. If you go all out on culture, then all you have to do to win is stay #1 in Military Rating (the AIs both fear and like you more if you lead in military) until however long it takes you to build enough Influence bases and flip enough planets to win by Influence.

* I should also note that in GalCiv2, there seems to be very little of the "I just researched these units and already they are obsolete" syndrome found in Civ4.

Play a larger galaxy, it's in there.

There is an option for slowing the tech rate, though. I'm going to try that in my next game of Gigantic and see if it plays better.

Besides, that complaint about Civ4 mystifies me. I think a lot of it is leftover Civ3 habits from returning players. They are used to having larger armies, so wait longer than necessary to train a similar number of units instead of getting out there and using the units they have. I have had little trouble making use of any era of units in Civ4.

In fact, in GalCiv, learning even one of the myriads of military techs can render a whole generation of ships obsolete. I've found myself deliberately avoiding upgrading ship designs again and again, purposely eating a disadvantage over what I could have if I went through even more micro.

Our differences on this point may revolve around playing under different conditions. I'm not only playing on the larger maps, with higher than default fertility, but also playing with high level AIs, who research things a lot faster (and then give them to me for free or nearly so as I shuffle techs back and forth between them). My tech pace may be six or eight times faster than yours or more. ... In the right situation, you may be correct about the tech pace. BUT this is not something inherent to GalCiv2 vs Civ4, but to the particulars of your chosen game settings.

* I'll conclude by saying that I am still too wet behind the ears to declare GalCiv2 the winner over Civ4.

They're both good games. In the end, I prefer Civ4 primarily because it offers an extended expansion phase (can't grow too fast, don't have to spam the colony ships), involves a lot less micromanagement, and has fewer situations with only one right choice. GalCiv2 hits a lot of gameplay niches that Civ4 doesn't, though, so strategy game fans should get both. Some will prefer one or the other, but most will enjoy both.



Wow, interesting comment here:

Originally posted by yin26
By the way, another reason I think GalCiv will ultimately beat out Civ4 as a better game for me is Brad's approach to multiplayer as explained here: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...750#post4244750 Simply put, he decided not to the let the minority players (MP) force a lesser game down the throats of the majority (SP). We see clearly that Civ4 --for marketing reasons or whatever-- went the other way. I understand and respect the MPers who are having a great time with Civ 4 on-line, but Firaxis has held SP hostage by this decision.

That's probably getting in to territory where I need to lay low, but in general a quick comment: Multiplayer is far more demanding on game balance. SP in Civ4 was certainly not held hostage by anything. The only difference between SP and MP in the game rules is the AI, and Civ4's AI was not shortchanged.

GalCiv's wide open racial options would have been the first casualty of multiplayer. The more vectors in play and the looser the leash, the more radically superior some options become. Certain picks become "must have" as they did in Master of Orion II multiplayer, and others are discarded to the galactic trash heap. You might think that fewer options would be bad, but improved game balance adds replayability to the existing options. This becomes a question of breadth or depth, and there IS something good to be said for depth. A game that can stand up to the rigors of long term multiplayer exposure will actually turn out to be a better single player game as a result, in terms of replayability. In going for more options, you can trade in game balance for exploration, where most of the options are only worth playing once and then the suspense is gone and boredom will set in. Both types of games have their place. It's a question of design priority, with right answers in both directions.


- Sirian

[yin26]

But they should surrender to the one winning the war, not a neutral party on the other side of the galaxy.

I think this plays well in gameplay terms, even if it makes the game harder/last longer in a counter-intuitive way. Otherwise it's just a domino effect as you take that first civ over, rinse and repeat.

One of my biggest beefs with this game is what everyone else for some weird reason praises, the AI.

Out of curiosity, what level are you playing on? I'm still testing the AI but definitely *have* seen it alter its builds to counter my attacks. That's pretty good.

There are some things I like though...

All good points.

They've also found a nice balance to economy and production...

Indeed, I think this is a great, great factor. Forces some decisions on you.

All in all it's a nice game and it'll keep me busy for a while. But it's no Civ 4.

Keep me posted if you haven't already beaten the higher levels of the game. For me, of course, some of the "non Civ 4" elements --like getting rid of workers-- are what's leaning me away from Civ 4 anyway.

[Gufnork]

The AI surrendering is probably what annoys me the most. They expect me to stop my war because they have another flag? If another AI is dumb enough to accept a surrender from someone I'm beating they will suffer for their impudence. I am glad that they do surrender to you occasionally, saves me some of the cleanup burden, the part of the game I hate the most. But they should surrender to the one winning the war, not a neutral party on the other side of the galaxy.

One of my biggest beefs with this game is what everyone else for some weird reason praises, the AI. It's planet builds are stupid, they sent transports without any escort, they don't bring enough troops to conquer the planets, they declare wars that they cannot win. Once in several games have they even bothered to counter my weapon technology. I played a game on Painful without ever losing a ship. Why? My shield technology was too powerful and they didn't realize they could utilize other weaponry. They also ignore speed, meaning that even when the AI had better tech I could conquer his planets easily by evading his large fleets.

There are some things I like though. The alignment system and the race bonuses makes playing a different race a slightly different experience. No where near the level of SMAC, but still. The ship building system is very good, even if the combat movies are kinda sucky. The gradual increase in tech levels means that there are no huge tech differences, which means that no game is ever completly lost.

They've also found a nice balance to economy and production. You need to really consider how to develop your planets, if you build too many factories you won't afford to use them, too few and you're building too slow. I just wish you could decide a budget on a planetary basis, as it is it's a micromanagement nightmare. Especially since wasted social production points still cost. This leads to me often setting 100% military production and just emphasize social on the planets that needs it in times of low economy.

All in all it's a nice game and it'll keep me busy for a while. But it's no Civ 4.

[yin26]

Many good points, bonscott!

By the way, another reason I think GalCiv will ultimately beat out Civ4 as a better game for me is Brad's approach to multiplayer as explained here: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...50#post4244750 Simply put, he decided not to the let the minority players (MP) force a lesser game down the throats of the majority (SP). We see clearly that Civ4 --for marketing reasons or whatever-- went the other way. I understand and respect the MPers who are having a great time with Civ 4 on-line, but Firaxis has held SP hostage by this decision.

Here, too, I think Stardock's relative lack of budget actually helps them make much better decisions about where to put the money.

By the way, just one kind of problem the "MP first" ploy causes is in diplomacy: If you take the stance that no human player online would cede his nation to another player but would always prefer to fight to the last unit (or just resign), then you don't even begin to contemplate coding the SP AI to do things like what we see in GalCiv2. You also force SP to reflect the kinds of human to human strategies that take place on-line and close those "loop holes" in SP -- loopholes that were never a problem in SP as long as the AI wasn't playing like some hyper human opponent on-line anyway. This effectively says the AI isn't your opponent rather some on-line player with a thirst for breaking the spirit of the game is.

The fundamental questions you must answer in MP or SP are radically different from each other, as MP looks first at how to carefully limit player options in order to keep things "fair" between human players (this usually means a watered down system with fewer items that can be exploited) whereas good SP looks at how to ramp up the AI in order to keep the human player challenged. This usually means, too, a limit to the kinds of things the AI can handle (the workshop in SMAC had troubles, for instance, for the AI), but you are looking at that --the AI-- as the opponent and asking "Can the AI handle this?" rather than "Would human players abuse it?"

Brad's approach for the SP AI makes sense: Code it to recognize the gaming habits of the best SP players, which means monitoring those players habits long after release to keep tweaking the code. Sure, most players will never even need that much of a challenge, but it's there if the work up to it.

Don't get me wrong, I still say Civ 4 is a solid game, and I applaud the team for doing much, much better than Civ 3, but I think the decision to go MP from the ground up (along with the decision to do the pretty graphics thing) took us in a wrong-headed direction.